Overview

• A Belgian widower, Michel, drove 472 miles to meet who he believed was French model Sophie Vouzelaud and was met instead by her husband, Fabien Boutamine.
• The 76-year-old victim had been communicating via WhatsApp with an impersonator and transferred about $35,000 to the scammer.
• Boutamine recorded the awkward doorstep exchange and posted it on social media, where the clip quickly gained over 11,000 likes.
• Vouzelaud, a former Miss France runner-up with nearly 300,000 Instagram followers, urged vigilance against fake profiles and cautioned others about romance scams.
• The incident underscores the ease of social media impersonation and the particular vulnerability of older adults to online fraud.